


Separate

by laireshi



Category: Marvel 616, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Extremis, M/M, Soulmates, Stony Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3972112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extremis changed more than either of them had thought possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separate

**Author's Note:**

> It's written for a prompt, if you want to see it it's in the end notes.
> 
> Thanks for beta to [montasticy](http://montasticy.tumblr.com/) :)
> 
> A fill for "for science!" on my bingo card.

Steve's left hand _hurts_.

It's burning and icy simultaneously. He swears, clutching it to his chest briefly, before the full meaning of it hits him and the pain doesn't seem so important anymore.

He looks at his ring finger and the simple mark going around it, like a tattoo.

Except it's not a tattoo, it's Tony's mark for him, and it's fading, disappearing and showing back again, and Steve knows what it means and can't accept it. 

He's in the middle of nowhere, trying to find Bucky, and _Tony_ _is dying_.

Steve shakes his head. No. No he's not. He can't be. It's—a glitch. That's what Tony would say, right? He'd try to rationalize everything.

A glitch. Nothing else.

It hurts, physically, viscerally, and Steve knows it's time to go home and see what is going on.

Because Tony is fine. He has to be.

***

Getting back to civilisation takes him three days, and he returns to footage of Iron Man getting beaten down by an unidentified villain. The footage of Iron Man taking the villain down follows—Steve sits on a S.H.I.E.L.D. plane, staring at the tablet screen.

It's a new armour. One he hasn't seen before. They tell him it's Tony piloting it and he breathes with relief.

The mark around his finger remains cold like ice.

He wants to call Tony, but something stops him.

***

When he finally walks into the Tower's living room, Tony isn't there. Peter is, sprawled on the couch and watching daytime TV.

“Hey, Cap, back already?” he asks.

“Where's Tony?” Steve can't really focus on anything else right now.

Peter rolls his eyes. “In the lab. Playing with his new armour.”

Steve nods. He skips the elevator in favour of running down the stairs. He needs the exertion, movement, he doesn't want to be trapped with just his thoughts.

Tony's lab door is closed. Steve types in his override and waits for it to open, clenching and unclenching his fist impatiently. It's just a few seconds, but it feels like a lifetime.

When Steve goes inside, Tony's got half the armour on, and he's fiddling with his gauntlet. He looks up when Steve comes in and smiles brightly. “Hey! Have you seen—”

Steve cuts him off with a kiss he needed like air, feeling Tony under his hands, touching him to make sure he's fine. 

Tony responds eagerly, nibbing at his lower lip, running his bare hand through Steve's hair and holding on to him with the gauntleted one.

 _Steve's hand doesn't stop hurting_.

He breaks the kiss and looks at Tony, his blue eyes, a few days worth of stubble, the way he looks pleased with himself.

“Are you all right?” Steve asks.

“More than,” Tony grins. He steps away from Steve and his armour flies to him and settles into place. Tony bows before it disassembles again and he's left in just his golden undersuit.

“Neat,” Steve comments. “I saw you fight—” He thinks of the disappearing mark and doesn't mention it. He's not sure he can.

Tony grimaces. “It's fine.”

“It didn't look—”

“It's fine, okay?” Tony cuts in. “I'm fine, you're fine, and actually I haven't seen you in over a week, and . . .” The undersuit . . . disappears off his body. Steve isn't sure how it works, and he thinks there's something _wrong_ with how Tony looks, but before he has time to ask, Tony sidles up with him again, entirely naked, and kisses the breath out of him.

Steve can't really argue with that. Not that he wants to.

He lets Tony pull off his shirt, and it's good, it's great to feel Tony's hands on his bare skin, but . . .

Steve catches Tony's left wrist and brings his hand to his mouth, to kiss his palm, his mark—

Except it's gone.

Tony's skin is clear. The matching ring isn't drawn on it.

Steve freezes. 

Tony stills second later. “What?”

“Your mark,” Steve says, the words forced out of him.

Tony follows his gaze and shudders. “I—”

“You didn't notice,” Steve whispers and lets him go, Tony's touch suddenly burning.

Steve looks at his own hand, at the black lines firmly set into his skin and still hurting, and wonders if that's how a broken bond feels.

It seems like an inhuman effort, but he forces himself to glance at Tony again, and in the moment before the undersuit _reappears_ on his body, he notices what seemed wrong earlier.

Tony's scars are gone too.

This connected with the suit that seems like it's integrated with Tony's body makes Steve think, “ _This is not Tony_.”

But it is. He feels the pull in his bones, almost compulsion to touch him again.

He should say something, but all words escape him.

Tony's eyes are unnaturally dark, and he's staring somewhere behind Steve. “Extremis,” he says finally.

“What,” Steve says.

“Extremis,” Tony repeats. “It—” He stops himself. He raises his hand and the undersuit slowly disappears. It looks almost as if it's hiding _inside_ his body. Steve's gaze locks on Tony's finger and Tony winces, lowers his hand again. “I . . . I had to stop Mallen.” The villain, Steve guesses. “I had to upgrade. Extremis—it rewrote my biology.”

 _Upgrade_. Like he was a computer?

“I thought you were dying,” Steve whispers.

Tony fidgets. “Extremis fixed me,” he says finally. “It fixed my heart, my body, it . . .”

“But you're no longer mine.”

“Do you think that mark matters,” Tony snaps angrily.

“It clearly doesn't to you,” Steve mutters. 

“I love you,” Tony says.

Steve wants to believe that. “You didn't even notice,” he says instead.

Tony ducks his head. “I was busy,” he answers. “I have—all the things I can do, Steve, you wouldn't believe—”

Tony loves tech. It's nothing new. It's a part of him. But . . . _I can do_? Like he has superpowers now . . . ?

“Tell me,” Steve says, pretending he isn't hurting all over, pretending he doesn't want to run away and go back in time to when things were right.

 _I can see through satellites_ , Tony says. He somehow switches the tech in his lab on and off with what seems just a thought. With what _is_ a thought, he explains later. His voice comes from the speakers as he doesn't move his lips at all. His eyes go dark and unfocused.

Through all of it, Steve isn't quite sure what's going on. Tony—Tony changed himself into a computer?

He was so afraid Tony was hurt, but what happened was Tony deciding to upgrade himself like he was a piece of his tech? 

Steve—

It's not right, he thinks. It's—Tony's armour is _wonderful_ , but _he's not it_. It's a part of him, it's a part Steve accepts and loves, but it's not _literally_ him.

Tony, clearly, disagrees.

Extremis is technology. Soulmate marks are old magic.

Extremis shouldn't be able to influence it, unless . . . Unless it's Tony who changed at his core, who doesn't need Steve anymore, who's made himself _better_.

He didn't need to be better. Steve isn't sure he knows the man looking at him now.

He flees half way through Tony's explanation of how great having his armour in his head is.

He's not sure Tony even notices. He certainly doesn't follow Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "What about a soulmate-ish thing, where Tony and Steve are soulmates and then Tony gets Extremis. But when it reboots him to be better, Steve's name or w/e mark Tony has for Steve, is scratched through/burnt off/taken away because he's no longer the same Tony?"


End file.
